Bruins have shut down Red Wings

Through three games of their first-round series with the Bruins, the Red Wings' engines have been stuck in neutral, their wheels spinning in quicksand.

By Dan CagenDaily News staff

When the Bruins lost to the Red Wings on April 2, the Winged Wheels appeared like those toy cars that just need to be pulled back to rev up.

Darren Helm, Johan Franzen and Gustav Nyquist all had breakaway chances. Nyquist's winner in the final 10 minutes made the difference in the game, a 3-2 Detroit win.

Through three games of their first-round series with the Bruins, the Red Wings' engines have been stuck in neutral, their wheels spinning in quicksand.

Detroit has scored two goals in three games. Tuukka Rask picked up a breezy 23-save shutout in Tuesday's 3-0 shutout win at Joe Louis Arena. Rask hasn't allowed a score in 86:40, dating to the second period of Sunday's Game 2. The Bruins have cruised to consecutive victories to take a 2-1 series lead.

The Bruins are hardly kicking themselves over either goal Detroit has scored so far. Pavel Datsyuk went all world-class on them for the only goal in Game 1, then Luke Glendening's score bounced off his shoulder and glove before going in Sunday.

As for all that speed the Wings were supposed to bring? The Bruins will let them be as fast as they want chasing the puck.

In Games 2 and 3, the Bruins have dominated the puck in the key moments of the game. After not doing so in Game 1, they've gotten to their high probability-of-success areas — down low, below the dots and most importantly, with the puck in their possession. The Bruins had an 18-4 shots advantage in the first period of Game 2, 11-4 in Game 3.

All four Bruins lines were gunning in Game 3. David Krejci’s unit had its best game. Reilly Smith and Brad Marchand were creating chances. Shawn Thornton and Jordan Caron took advantage of a bad line change to set up Boston’s second goal. Carl Soderberg set up Marchand for a great chance with a beautiful move in the first period.

Puck possession is the key element to this series, and the Bruins have punished Mike Babcock's club in that area in their two wins. Even when Detroit had the advantage in Game 1, it took Datsyuk's one-man show to score a goal.

Nyquist, Justin Abdelkader, Riley Sheahan, David Legwand, Brendan Smith and Niklas Kronwall are all without points in the series. The Bruins have points from 12 players in this series.

With Henrik Zetterberg still sidelined, much of the scoring load falls on Datsyuk. That means Zdeno Chara is planted inside Datsyuk's skates. Chara took 19 of his 23 even-strength shifts Tuesday against Datsyuk, per shiftchart.com. Although Datsyuk had a strong Corsi (59.1 percent for-percentage), he had just one shot on net, his attempts kept to the outside.

Mike Babcock has yet to make a strong effort to separate Datsyuk from Chara. He did shift Datsyuk's line over to David Krejci's unit in Game 3, in an effort to free up by Datsyuk and the second line centered by Riley Sheahan.

It didn't work. It's impossible to generate offense when the other team always has the puck.